'Give DeFi time, it may surprise you' — DEX CEO on state of the market

The CEO of a decentralized derivatives exchange has told Cointelegraph that many DEXs are unusable — and he's determined to change that.

Lei Wang is the head of Kine, which aims to provide a fast, effortless way to trade derivatives across multiple blockchains.

In a live ask-me-anything session on Cointelegraph's YouTube channel, he revealed that trades using Kine's infrastructure are completed in 20 milliseconds — and users can take out multiple positions on the same asset, all while managing them separately.

Plus, in an attempt to reach a broad cross-section of users, a copy trading feature serves as an educational tool so newcomers can observe the strategies of professionals.

Lei revealed that, if he wanted to do some serious trading, he would have been forced to use centralized trading platforms… until now.

Some of the pain points that Kine addresses include liquidity, cost and latency — which are all "absolutely essential factors for leveraged trading." 

He stressed that the derivatives markets are entirely different from spot trading — and leverage is required because of how positions are opened and closed frequently. Latency also has to be reduced to milliseconds so users don't miss out on opportunities, and a broad range of order types are needed for seasoned crypto traders.

Lei argued that previous DEXs have failed to deliver all of this — and while it wasn't necessarily the fault of the project itself, the inefficiencies of current blockchain technology are largely to blame.

Inspired by Apple

Speaking to Rachel Wolfson, Lei said that he has long been inspired by Apple's approach to designing the first iPod — with clear objectives that wouldn't compromise on the user experience.

Kine's goals have included charging lower fees than centralized exchanges, delivering lightning-fast latency, and supporting all frequently used order types — and when put together, he says this delivers "a great product that people would want to use." 

The trading platform's target market is retail users rather than professionals, and Lei added: "Professional traders have too much of an advantage against retail users — creating such an unfair trading environment. What we want to do is create an absolutely fair trading environment for everybody."

Kine also recently launched a zero-fee trading promotion for all users, and the CEO hinted that this could be indefinite. 

When asked how his project makes money with zero fees, he replied: "You solve problems one by one. The biggest problem is that general users for DeFi are very few. The first problem we solve is by taking users in. 

"How do we make money? We'll figure it out later. If Google thought about how to make money the first day they made the project, we wouldn't see such a great company today. So let's worry about that later." 

Current market trends

Lei also took the opportunity to answer some fascinating questions from the audience.

He was asked whether current trends suggest that GameFi is replacing DeFi, and said: "GameFi and DeFi solve different problems. In the traditional world, a gaming company cannot take a bank's place. They serve a different purpose — but they'll definitely co-exist."

And given the current bear market, another burning question concerned whether he believes the DeFi market is dead.

Kine's CEO was upbeat about the industry's prospects — and pointed out that DeFi now has far more users, services and transactions than it did back in 2019. And while it didn't meet some unrealistic expectations from investors, it's grown stronger at its own pace.

"I was there, early 2000, when the dotcom bubble burst," Lei said. "It's just the same thing over and over again, but look what Web2 has achieved over the past 20 years after the bubble has burst. 

"Give DeFi some time, it may surprise you."